Conventionally, when the volume of water on the ground surface increases due to heavy rain or the like, water may flow into buildings from entrances or exits, such as building hallways. Accordingly, in order to prevent water intrusion into buildings, sandbags have been piled up on the opening frontage and covered with a tarpaulin or the like to provide simple water-blocking equipment.
However, the hand-carrying and piling of sandbags take much labor and time. As an emergency countermeasure, this method has a problem in work efficiency. In particular, it is difficult for women, elderly people, etc., to perform such work. While it is difficult to quickly obtain soil to be packed in the sandbags, preparing sandbags with soil packed therein beforehand also has a problem because a large storage space is required for the sandbags. Furthermore, the disposal of sandbags after use, etc., is also troublesome.
Accordingly, various water-blocking devices have been proposed that can be installed at the entrances or exits, etc., of buildings (see, for example, Patent Literature 1 (PTL 1). The water-blocking device disclosed in PTL 1 is such that after a grounding plate is placed on the floor surface at a building entrance or exit and a water-blocking plate is dropped down while fitting both end portions of the water-blocking plate into both-side rail members secured to both end portions of the grounding plate, a first pressurizing device is operated to press the water-blocking plate downward, thereby compressively deforming a packing material disposed between the grounding plate and the water-blocking plate, while a second pressurizing device is operated to press the water-blocking plate forward, thereby compressively deforming a packing material disposed between the water-blocking plate and each of the rail members, so that a water-tight state is established between the water-blocking plate and the grounding plate and between the water-blocking plate and the rail members.